Themes of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher

Claudius however, fearful that someone will discover his evil deed, has also had his perceptions heightened by his guilt and he experiences chronic paranoia throughout the play as a result. He is doubtful as to whether Hamlet is really mad, as we find him telling Polonius, “...what he spake ...Was not like madness. There's something in his soul O'er which his melancholy sits on brood, And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose Will be some danger” (3, 1, 157-161). On the contrary, I believe that Hamlet, lost in his soliloquies and vengeful thoughts, actually becomes mad. Ironically, his form of madness is paranoia.

Poe begins the piece with the audience doubting the narrator. One instance where the narrator indicates his mental state is when he says “My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body.” This is of course not possible. Souls are imaginary. The narrator knows he sounds insane, and that thought most likely upsets him. Throughout the piece the narrator thoughts become more jumbled and frantic.

He is afraid of failure. Hamlet tries to play off his fear by blaming outside circumstances, like doubting the existence of the ghost when he knows in his heart it is true, and not having the right opportunity to exact revenge. What it all boils down to is a belief in himself, or lack of, that is a lack of self confidence. Hamlet's excuse of doubting the ghost is displayed in his actions when they meet. "Be thou a spirit of health or a goblin damned,/ bring with the airs from heaven of blasts from hell,/ be thy intents wicked or charitable,/ thou com'st in such a questionable shape/ that I will speak to thee.

The narrator also comments on how Roderick seems to stare at nothing and appears to be "listening to some imaginary sound"(Poe, 673). Again, this may be another hint of some evil occurrence yet to happen and Roderick does in fact lose his sanity as well as his life when Madeline reappears before Roderick and the narrator at the end of the story. In conclusion Poe excellent use of characterization and imagery to depict fear and darkness, truly make The Fall of the House of Usher a story of the battles the we must face our fears in order to free our mind.

This is the final trigger, which causes Poe to comprehend his insanity. He runs away from his mind and does not want to accept it but he can do nothing about it. By this realization his mind falls apart and Edgar has reached the height of his insanity. Through the short story of “The Fall Of The House Of Usher” Poe did a phenomenal job of expressing himself and of revealing his own insanity. Poe had an idea of what he was becoming but after he did examine himself he was very frightened and he knew the only thing to do was to run.

The line in the play that reflects this certain fear is this; “ Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover’d country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all” (3.1.91). In this quote Hamlet identifies the reason for choosing life over death. While it may seem strange to suffer through life 's tribulations, it is the not knowing what the after life has in store that causes men to choose life. The thought that the afterlife may be even more unbearable than life makes cowards of us all.

Dimmesdale is very hypocritical in how he handles the subject of his sin. For example, he says "Be not silent from any mistaken pity or tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty he... ... middle of paper ... ...glimpse of human affection and sympathy, a new life, and a true one, in exchange for the heavy doom which he was now expiating." (pg. 184). Hester's offer to him for a new shot at life could not lift the guilt.

Such is the case in “Usher.” Those who are skeptical of Poe’s Romantic influences would use this aspect of Romanticism to claim that he is not a Romantic because throughout the story the narrator attempts to explain the unexplainable with the rational. An example of this is when the narrator attributes an “iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart” merely to the “combination of very natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us” (Poe, “Usher”). This argument is week because the narrator fails miserably to provide solid rational explanations for these “strange” events and f... ... middle of paper ... ...ic thread seek to further Poe’s overall goal of terror. Either they develop the character in such a way that would increase the gloomy, mysterious, and supernatural mood of the stories, establish the mood through the setting, or help to further this mood in some other way. The combination of the Romantic thread in these two stories is no different.

Historically, people who were transformed into vampires were no longer the same human beings. Instead, they became monsters who retained only the physical appearance of their former selves. Our interpretation of the poem is affected if we assume that when Plath wrote about a vampire she had in mind the older conception of a monster which took over the body of a now dead human. With this image in mind we will tend to look for ways the duality of father and husband in the poem correspond to the vampire's dual i... ... middle of paper ... ...the memory of her father's equally painful though unintentional abandonment. Despite the mixing of father and husband in the antagonist of "Daddy" it is obvious which man Sylvia Plath is addressing with the poem's last line, written during the breakup of her marriage and three months before her suicide: "Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through" (80).

The thoughts and feelings of Montresor lead the reader to conclude that he is not successful at revenge. Montresor says in telling his story, "You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however that I gave utterance to a threat" (153). By communicating in this way, the question arises of who Montresor is actually speaking to, and why he is telling this story fifty years later. One can only conclude that it is for one of two reasons: he is either bragging or finally giving confession. As he tells the story, it becomes obvious that he has not yet filled his need to win, and now a half of a century later, is still struggling with his conscience.